


Keep Him Alive

by Stay_On_Topic



Category: Saw (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Blood and Gore, F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, No Smut, POV Third Person, Whump
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-31
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-18 01:29:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29110092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stay_On_Topic/pseuds/Stay_On_Topic
Summary: In a desperate attempt to save her father from the infamous Jigsaw killer, Avery finds herself fighting for someone else’s life.
Relationships: Daniel Matthews/Original Character
Kudos: 8





	Keep Him Alive

8:23 pm

The Gordon Apartment

It would generally come into consideration that it is rather the overuse of metaphors that tend to keep readers from following along, but those words are actually the words that create the image in the reader's head. "The Plot Against America" is quite an interesting story, but also one insanely hard to follow along with. Through her efforts were strong, she couldn't bring herself to understand what the fuck she was supposed to process.

It wasn't the metaphors themselves that confused her, or that she, lying down on her bed, was most likely not in the best position for one to be reading in, but rather the fact that she kept finding herself unintentionally reflecting those metaphors onto her own thoughts, which was now why she had to reread it as unassigned homework. 

"Dammit." she groaned, dropping the small book down onto her chest. Its surprisingly dense paper cover pressed down onto her torso, persuading her to pick it up and drop it onto the floor. 

Looking back up she found herself staring straight at the ceiling above her, who's empty white paint streaks drove her crazy. When her parents had purchased the house they claimed that a white ceiling would illuminate the rest of the room during the day by reflecting the sunlight that shined through the windows, but Avery's habit of keeping the shades down caused the room to remain quite dark. During the day the light tended to sneak through the spaces between each blind while at night the place was almost pitch black.

The walls of the room were a bold brown, decorated with posters, lights, pictures, a variety of random things, really; but the ceiling was just- nothing. Its emptiness was too striking not to bother her. Whoever entered was doomed to see that endless void before noticing the beauty of the rest of the space.

A quiet knock interrupted her thoughts.

"Av?" 

"Come in, Mom," Avery responded once recognizing the soft voice that came.

Alison opened the door and leaned into the room, holding onto the doorknob with one hand while stretching out the other in a comical manner.  
"Dinner." she said with a smile. Avery chuckled and side high-fived mother's hand to get out of bed. She pranced to the kitchen only to be stopped by the unexpected one sitting at the table.

"Dad." she began, unaware of the ambiguous expression that came upon her face when she noticed Lawrence present.

"Hello, Avery," he responded with a smile, as she sat down. He glanced at her as he spoke, but soon quickly reverted his eyes back to her mother. Diana was sitting next to him, and it seemed like they had already started since everyone's plates were over halfway gone; well, almost everyone's, but Avery didn't seem to take too much offense from the fact that nobody had called her until they were almost finished.

"What were you doing in your room?" Lawrence asked her in an almost inconspicuously cynical tone after an awkward moment of silence.

"Oh, just reading." she responded politely, keeping her gaze on the untouched plate in front of her, "I wanted to reread a book that we are reading in school because I found it confusing."

"You need to pay more attention in class if you're having difficulties. Junior year is the most important year to finish off with good grades."

Without moving her eyes, Avery nodded. She could feel her mother's commiserating eyes on her, though that sympathy was unwanted. Lawrence's comments towards her academic achievement were nothing new, and both she and her mother were well aware of that. Unlike her, Avery saw his comments as rather critiques instead of insults, though she was unsure if she had forced herself to think that. Lawrence cared about his daughters, nothing else said.

Once realizing that Avery didn't take too much offense from what he said, Alison reverted her eyes back to her own food.

"Diana, how was school?"

<><><>

After dinner, Avery went back to her room to continue reading. When walking through her bedroom door, it seemed as if sunlight had given up on its attempt to pass through her window, taking into mind that at this point she couldn't see any. The book that she had dropped earlier was still lying on the floor in front of her, right where she had left it, so she remained still for a bit, staring down at the thing. Spending the next few hours reading something that, despite her efforts, she couldn't understand did not sound the slightest bit appealing, so to distract herself from the pressure to become successful in what Lawrence's view of "academic achievement" is, she strolled over the book and sat down in front of the small vanity placed next to her window.

Looking in the mirror attached, she ran her hands through her hair trying to see what it would look like if it wasn't so damn curly. Her makeup had run at this point, creating a smudged blob of black under her sea jade eyes. 

"How do they do it?" she whispered, taking a towelette from one of the drawers to wipe it off. Unlike those at school who, alongside her, also wore makeup, her faint eyeliner would always smudge before third period. The thought of not putting makeup on in the first place had crossed her mind once or twice, but just like academic achievement, physical appearance was valued in the Gordon family.

"Academic achievement." she thought, looking back at the book, "Right."

<><><>

2:39

Her eyes carefully skimmed each word on the page as her fingers ran against the edge. This copy was one of those tiny ones with a ton of pages and small words. Though she preferred copies with hard covers, because, who doesn't, the students at her school always received paper copies. Paper copies were always so hard to hold and keep open. Pick one up and your fingers would get tired after no more than five minutes, especially at 2:40 am when your dad is making you reread something for the 8th time. 

"...I hadn't understood 'till then how the shameless vanity of utter fools can so strongly determine the fate of others." she read,

"It is only in a rare circumstance that a fool would have such authority." She thought, merely rolling her eyes at such a pathetic statement as complete focus was finally regained. It had begun to rain at this point, which, throughout the past hour, had kept her from imagining the world in which one would imagine when reading. Her mind was blank; all she was able to do was take note of the events that were described in the last few pages. No world, no experience, no nothing. Soon enough, the fear of failing could not defeat her tiredness and she drifted asleep.

<><><>

9:41

"Gordon."

Startled by the sudden presence of her French teacher's gratingly shrill voice, Avery awoke, quickly perking her head up from the pillow her arms had created to make eye contact with her. 

"I'm up," she said with forced enthusiasm in a poor attempt to hide her exhaustion. Her drowsiness remained unfortunately visible, which allowed the woman to notice her state of fatigue with almost no effort.

"Sleep at night, not during lectures." she demanded benevolently, "Rester éveillé."

"Right. Sorry." Avery responded, grabbing her pen to continue working on the sheet of paper put out in front of her. She had wanted to take French for a while but wasn't accepted into a language class until this year, meaning that she would have to take it in her senior year. Of course, this was French 1, which meant everyone in that class would have to take it next year as well.

"Vendredi." The one sitting next to her whispered, interrupting her train of thought.  
Too tired to process what he said, she rubbed her eyes and paused to glance at him, "Hm?"

"I said Vendredi." He repeated, this time a bit less intimidated than before as he pointed to the legible words she had written. She looked back at her paper, just now realizing that her mind had wandered somewhere else as her hands were writing the words above the little blanks between each sentence. 

He continued, "You said that Friday in French was 'Mardi', when 'Mardi' is actually Monday. Friday is Vendredi."

"Matthews."

The brunette perked his head up from Avery's work to give the one who called that name his attention. A confused expression came upon his face as he made eye contact with her. He shook his head, "I was just-"

"Mrs. Gordon can do this on her own." She interrupted, "Focus on your own work."

His eyes remained on the woman, a bit offended that he was given that tone after trying to help, until Avery's quick and reassuring "Thank you."distracted him from the subtle glare he was trying to give.

His expression softened as he looked back and met her eyes, "No problem."

<><><>

8:56  
A night-time routine is rather freedom than how trapping it is claimed to be, it is rather freedom from the stress of remembering everything that she had to do before getting into bed; at least that is what Alison felt the urge to constantly remind her of. Taking note of routine-like habits wasn't something done often, but tonight the thought crossed Avery's mind. The truth is, routine didn't feel like freedom. It never felt like freedom. Everything was put in order so perfectly, but that wasn't what she wanted. every night was the same.

Her teeth-brushing came to a pause once she met her reflection's tired eyes. As they stared back at her, it was if they were really doing so: reading her body language, studying her physical features, it was as if there was a person behind the glass. She had never hated her physical features, but never loved them either. Bringing herself to hate someone's physical appearance was quite a challenge for her and the same goes for her reflection since she wasn't staring at herself. 

Her eyes, at this point, were having what could be deemed as a staring contest. Of course, all she was doing was carefully studying nearly every square inch of her face, but it wasn't soon until she dropped her hands, realizing how pathetic that seemed when put into words. Finished in the current room she was in, she went to a kitchen to get a glass of water.

"I don't know how much longer I can do this Larry." Her mother's voice echoed in the other room as she finished filling up her cup from the fridge.  
"What?" Her father responded as she followed the sound, "What are you talking about?"  
"How can you walk through life pretending that you're happy?"  
"I am happy."  
Avery's eyes squinted in confusion as she subtly peeked her head out from a corner to get a better view of them. Sure, her mother wasn't too fond of Lawrence's lack of emotion over the past few years, but did that really get to her that much?  
"That is complete bullshit." Alison stated, folding her arms, "I'd rather you break down and tell me that you hated me. At least there'd be some passion in it."  
"We can talk about this later, okay?" He sighed, leaning in for a kiss only to be rejected by the turning of Alison's head.

She kept her eyes away, "Just leave."

Avery felt a pain in her heart. Were they really like this? Why hadn't she seen this side of either of them?  
"Please don't leave." She thought as the door closed behind him, soon sneaking back to her room as Alison continued to stare at the door.

Once returning, she sat on her bed and clutched her pillow. Were they really like this? What if they break up? Do they love each other? Why can't they just make up? Why is Dad so emotionless? Why can't Mom deal with it like everyone else does?  
She sighed, her eyes staring into space. It felt as if a cloud have come over her. The grey feeling in her chest had now turned a heavy dark blue. Screw freedom of routine, this would keep her up.

Or maybe it was what was about to happen that would keep her up.

This is where it all started. This moment. This one, mere moment. That one crash and that one scream that followed. 

It all started here.

Wait- that was Diana's scream. 

"Diana?!" Avery jumped up and sprinted through the hallways into the living room, "Are you o-"  
To her horror, her mother and sister were on the floor, tears streaming down their face as their shaking hands were being aggressively tied together by a masked man. 

The moment she met her mother's terrified gaze, the man got up onto his feet. To tall to be Lawrence, not to mention he doesn't own a pig mask. Despite Diana's screams to run, Avery remained frozen until the man lunged towards her.


End file.
